The only thing the government will be interested in is the spying which they aren't allowed to do, but unaccountable corporations are allowed to do. As people become more aware of this it means google becomes less and less useful.
When companies buy ads with Google they’re quite literally bidding for microtargeted user intent data.
No one can go to Google and buy information about a specific person.
No, you can’t buy user data on 1 specific person (then again, there’s many examples of people buying ads on a persons name to catch them googling themselves), but you can buy user data on small groups of people.
What does this mean? What is the value of "catching" someone googling themselves?
Demographics: Target users based on age, gender, parental status, household income, and more
Interests: Target people based on their interests, even if they're visiting pages about other topics
In-market audiences: Target users who are actively looking for products or services similar to yours
Custom intent audiences: Create and target audiences based on their search behavior and interests
Remarketing lists: Reconnect with users who have previously interacted with your website or app
Customer match: Use your first-party data to reach and re-engage with your customers
Similar segments: Expand the reach of your best-performing audiences by targeting new users with similar characteristics
Affinity audiences: Reach people based on a holistic picture of their lifestyles, passions, and habits
Life events segments: Target users
If they see the ad they fall into the category combination I specify. If they click the ad then I known all of that stuff about a visitor because I know which visitors clicked and which found their way outside of ads. If they signup or enter email or anything like that then I know exactly who they are for most people. Even if I have only an email but no name I can create a shell profile and use a data broker to find the name behind the email a lot of the time. Then I have everything tied to a person.
Multiply this times thousands upon thousands of ad impressions across multiple campaigns and you can bud a pretty good database with highly specific data. Sure 100% accuracy isn't guaranteed but neither is it guaranteed through more direct data brokers.
- I sell red bowling shoes
- I pay Google for access to anyone searching for ‘red bowling shoes’
- Once they land on my site I know who came via the Google ad (via the URL params)
- A certain percentage converts, and I get their personal info and payment info
I personally don’t think there’s anything wrong with that chain of events! It’s a win-win for both buyer and seller.
However, to argue that no data was sold is disingenuous at best. Google is the monopoly broker of the intent data on every buyer in the world.
Why should I let Google profit off of my thoughts/interests? Why shouldn’t I be making the money that the bowling shoe manufacturer paid to access my thoughts/interests?
You pay to show your website to people searching for red bowling shoes.
> However, to argue that no data was sold is disingenuous at best.
No user data has been sold.
When a TV station sells ad time to a company, and then someone sees the ad, comes into the store, and says "hey, I saw your TV ad while watching Law & Order", we don't say that the TV station has sold data to the merchant.
> I'm going by this document from the Irish Council for Civil Liberties and a lawsuit brought against Google, signed by member of Congress, that alleged data brokers are "siphoning" off bid-stream data and reselling it . It makes the claim that U.S Dept of Homeland Security uses real-time bidding data for warrant-less phone tracking.
> https://www.iccl.ie/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Mass-data-bre...
> https://www.tampabay.com/news/2021/05/07/google-selling-user...
After Bill Gates rode on a golf cart with Bill Clinton, he realized the need to pay the expected tribute to the politicians.
Of course, I wish things did not work this way. But isn't it a bit naive to think it doesn't?
Source? (They settled with Multiven.)
> isn't it a bit naive to think it doesn't
No, it's naïve to think that level of influence can be bought. Not an uncommon mistake. Bankman-Fried made it, and it's increasingly looking like Bytedance did too. But D.C. is a town obsessed with power over money. People regularly toss aside lobbyists and their clients if it's politically expedient. In part because it's not like the lobbyists (or their clients) ditch them after being spurned.
Corruption on the highest levels is very similar. Not everyone is on the buyers club.
BTW, if you're not dressed properly, some high end stores have a security guard who won't let you in. This can get tricky these days, as many wealthy people dress like slobs.
I once wandered into Cartier's in NYC, dressed in my trademark slob clothes. The security guard tailed me about a foot behind me, obviously trying to intimidate me into leaving. I just kept me hands in me pocketses, took a look around, then left.
This is unfalsifiable. To the extent electeds can be bought or lobbied, it's on the fringes--they didn't know about crypto and now they do and have a mildly favourable view towards it instead of not giving a shit. Certainly not around something involving the DoJ.
The naïve view is electeds in America can be bought and sold like a Patek Philippe. You can just buy one of those, for the simple reason that there exists a secondary market. Power, on the other hand, is perishable. Go back to Bankman-Fried's downfall and note how many people thought he had banked favours with his cash. (I sometimes think he thought he bought favours with his cash.) That isn't how D.C. works. It isn't how power centre works. Power is personal and perishable, and that makes it unique in comparison with the things we usually trade money for.
Ferrari still curates their customers. If you buy a Ferrari and paint it pink, you get on their "nope" list. You also cannot buy a new Ferrari today unless you have a previous relationship with them, or are very very rich.
depends on the selection process, of course. At least in the US and I imagine most of the EU. You can paint a ferrari pink and get blacklisted. Not sure how it would go if they say they don't sell to women...
If you want the super special stuff like Monza SP1/2 or Daytona SP3 you need a longstanding relationship with Ferrari, but you can walk into a showroom and drive out with a 296 or Roma this afternoon if you have the cash, and let's not pretend a 296 isn't a very special car.
An article I read around 2000 about why the DoJ didn't go after Cisco, despite Cisco having a monopolistic position at the time.
Sorry I don't have a photographic memory.
> it's naïve to think that level of influence can be bought.
Not at all. Where do you think the money for the Clinton Foundation came from, for example?
Bill attended Georgetown and Yale (where he met Hilary), was governor of Arkansas for 12 years and had a short stint of running the country before the foundation was founded. Hilary was a director at a school of law and worked under Carter's administration, and had decades of other legal feats before entering the senate right after founding the foundation.
If those two can't network in those 30 years for funds, then America as a whole is a sham.
The entire topic is dancing around the question of what corruption looks like in jurisdictions where you can’t just buy the government, and the answer is, mostly, regulatory capture.
Hard to find the sense in this action.